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CHESTER — Union manager Bradley Carnell didn’t take the question head on, but his answer from an angle was even more illuminating.
Tuesday night, after his team was eliminated from the U.S. Open Cup semifinals with a 3-1 loss in Nashville, Carnell said the rest of the week would entail “massaging the bodies and the brains.” The recovery would be as much from 180 minutes on the legs in four days as the mental toll those games inflicted, a 7-0 loss in Vancouver followed by the Cup ouster.
The challenge moving forward is just as much mental as tactical.
“If you live in fear, you’re going to fail,” Carnell said Thursday in his pre-match press conference. “And there’s nothing to fear.”
For months, the first-place Union (17-7-6, 57 points) have played with nothing to fear. But then everything that could go wrong did in Vancouver. No matter what the scoreline said, it’s just one loss in a difficult place to play that doesn’t subtract any of the 57 points they’ve already accumulated.
Intuitively, that’s easy to grasp. But it’s a challenge not to feel dragged down by the ignominy of giving up a touchdown, something only seven teams have done in a quarter century of MLS play.
“It feels terrible. I’m not going to lie,” midfielder Jovan Lukic said. “At the end of the day, it’s just a loss. You lose the same amount of points. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1-0 or 7-0, but still in your head it’s like, I felt embarrassed, ashamed. But it’s part of the game. It was our terrible day, and I don’t really know how that happened, but it happens.”
The remedy is mostly to flush it. The Union are in first place for a reason, Carnell has repeatedly told his players. There are mistakes to learn from, but for the most part, the 10 goals in one disastrous long weekend is to be put aside.
“It starts with self-reflection,” Carnell said. “I think a lot of the things that we’ve seen are just accounts of multiple errors, and through that accumulation of errors, there’s a certain result that ensues and then you get a goal conceded. So out of these moments, we found out, and we’ve learned lessons the hard way, that if we have too many individual errors, we’re going to concede a lot of goals.
“And it’s not about blaming or shaming the individual. It’s about growing as a team collectively. So there’s been a lot of accountability, starting with myself and moving through the rest of staff and the players.”
The Union have four games left, starting with a visit from New England on Saturday (2:30 p.m., AppleTV). The Revolution are in 11th in the East, all but eliminated from playoff contention and fresh off the firing of coach Caleb Porter.
The Union have two home games remaining, the Revs and fifth-place New York City FC. They travel to 14th-place D.C. United before spending Decision Day at Charlotte, which has won an MLS record nine straight. The Union can win out and still end up without the Supporters’ Shield, if Vancouver wins its last six or Miami its last seven, but the Union have the points in hand.
All that is extraneous this week. The focus is on getting back to their level of execution, and New England seems an ideal get-right foe.
The Union also might get a boost via Andre Blake. The goalie, who has been out for a month with a hamstring injury, is training. Carnell listed him as day-to-day, with a determination Friday if he could step in for Andew Rick, whom Carnell largely exonerated for the goals conceded in recent games.
“I think tomorrow we have another evaluation of how he’s doing,” Carnell said. “And he knows his body best, and he’ll give us an honest opinion if he can go or not. For sure, his presence is vital and valuable.”